


Exuviae

by LadyHaukyn



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Character Study, One Shot, Post-Mideel, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, poor Cloud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27948266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHaukyn/pseuds/LadyHaukyn
Summary: Motion sickness and the vertigo of revelation never were a friendly combination. They tag-team his poor head until the world is flooded in an alien colourscape. That smile is not his own.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Exuviae

**Author's Note:**

> Short one-shot character study of Cloud Strife. Post-Mideel incident, but before Rocket Town, you know what I'm talking about. Please enjoy my first public work!

_The Highwind_ had only been in the sky for two hours before Cloud vomited the last of his supper into the metal toilet bowl. The chemical burn of mako clung to the inside of his throat and nostrils, making his eyes water and squint as he cowered in the corner of the stall.

“Hey, Cloud? You okay in there?” A muffled voice asked from behind the restroom’s steel hatch, even though it sounded much further away. It was hard to tell when everything sounded like it was coming over spotty phone reception. The voice was concerned, as it usually was. Poor Tifa.

“Yeah, I’m good.” He waited quietly for her sneakers to retreat back down the corridor. They didn’t.

“Good speech out there. Just wanted to let you know everyone appreciated it.”

Even though she couldn’t see it, Cloud hauled himself to the sink and saw his reflection’s head nodding with a sympathetic little-V frown between his brows: _Sure, no problem_.

“Well, remember this is the only bathroom. We have five hours to Junon. Don’t hog it all day.”

His sigh whistled through his nose. He shrugged: _Okay_.

He righted himself as he heard Tifa walk away, cracked his neck, shook out his arms. _This is fine this is fine this is fine airships and helicopters and trucks are fine and I am fine_. He swallowed back another heave.

His reflection tried to flash a winning grin at him but his manic smile was much more of a grimace than a smile, ugly and misplaced on his sickly little face that might have once looked charming on another man. He quickly wiped away the smile, invaded. He wondered who that man was.

Now that Cloud could see the layers of Cloud — SOLDIER-Cloud, country boy-Cloud, specimen-Cloud, daredevil-Cloud, he wore people like people wore clothes, and _that_ thought made his skin crawl — it struck a nerve where he never knew he had one. That smile was not his, and it made him lean into the mirror with a childish scowl, as if getting physically closer to his image would help him better spot among the peeling layers some minutiae, thread, flake, some sign of real-Cloud.

Funny, that he would be the most stranger to himself. Cloud figured that maybe he just got so sick of himself that he decided to up and leave one day, years back: a refugee from the rubble of his own. The feeling was hollow, if not mutual, if actual physical hollowness were indeed a rational emotional state.

“You’re real _pathetic_ aren’t you?”

 _Pathetic pathetic pathetic pathetic pathetic_ hummed through his brain like an echo sweeping through a dark cavern. _Pathetic_ was one of those words that ended in a poison green hiss that he knew was not his. It was a borrowed word that someone had deposited there and left to rot.

The sour leer that pulled at his top lip was also not his, but it was gone as quickly as he spied it.


End file.
